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If your desire for 'good' is based on greed, it is not good, but greed.

Idries Shah

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Idries Shah
Age: 72 †
Born: 1924
Born: June 16
Died: 1996
Died: November 23
Author
Collector Of Fairy Tales
Teacher
Writer
Simla
Arkon Daraul
Greed
Based
Desire
Good

More quotes by Idries Shah

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Knowledge is not gained, it is there all the time. It is the veils which have to be dissolved in the mind.
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People today are in danger of drowning in information but, because they have been taught that information is useful, they are more willing to drown than they need be. If they could handle information, they would not have to drown at all.
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When you realize the difference between the container and the content, you will have knowledge.
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When the ignorant have become numerous or powerful enough, they have been referred to by a special name. This names is 'the Wise'.
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The impatient man is his own enemy he slams the door on his own progress.
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If you can turn a murderer into a mere thief, you are making progress.
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From time to time ponder whether you are unconsciously saying: 'Truth is what I happen to be thinking at this moment.
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To be obsessed by the idea of freedom, for instance, is itself a form of slavery. Such people are in the chains of the hope of freedom, and are therefore able to do little else than struggle with them.
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It is not only a matter of not caring who knows - it is also a matter of knowing who cares.
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Learn to be as analytical about things of which you are credulous as you are of those which you criticise.
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People used to play with toys. Now the toys play with them.
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From imperial, economic and ideological causes, many cultures are the inheritors, and hence the prisoners, of attitudes of scorn and disdain for other faiths – outlooks which are not ennobling to anyone.
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The learned person who only talks will never Penetrate to the inner heart of humans.
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A generous person may not have wisdom: but, unlike others, he has the means to gain it.
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When the Higher Man does something worthy of admiration, it is an evidence of his Mastership, not the object of it.
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You need not wonder whether you should have an unreliable person as a friend. An unreliable person is nobody's friend.
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You are adrift while you still think that a means is an end.
Idries Shah
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There is a Persian proverb: 'To test that which has been tested is ignorance.' To try to test something without the means of testing is even worse.
Idries Shah
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One cannot learn from someone whom one distrusts.
Idries Shah
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Exercise power by means of kindness, and you may be causing more damage than you could by cruelty. Neither approach is correct.
Idries Shah